Development process

Bitcoin Core Open Source Development Process

The Bitcoin Core project operates an open contributor model where anyone is welcome to contribute towards development in the form of peer review, testing and patches.

Bitcoin Core has transitioned from what was essentially a one-person software endeavor, with Satoshi functioning as the primary developer and gatekeeper for all changes, to a more distributed, free software model of development with hundreds of contributors. The Linux Kernel development process is being used as the model for how changes flow into the original Bitcoin application:

Developers work in their own source code trees, sharing and testing patches with each other. Git, using github, is the preferred source control system for development.